Good morning, all! I'm excited to be a new member. My grandmother knew some Gaelic and spoke a little of it when I was very young. I am looking for the correct Irish Gaelic word to use when referring to a female person as an "angel." When I looked up the word for "angel," it indicated the word is masculine. I would greatly appreciate knowing what word to use for a female who is a real "angel." Thank you so much!

Aingeal = Angel

The noun in Irish is masculine. All nouns in Irish (and most other European languages) are either masculine or feminine, not neutral like in English. It doesn't mean that the angel itself is male or female.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Aingeal = Angel

The noun in Irish is masculine. All nouns in Irish (and most other European languages) are either masculine or feminine, not neutral like in English. It doesn't mean that the angel itself is male or female.[/quote]

Thank you so much for the reply!

And although the noun may be masculine, as we all know, all decent angels are actually feminine - like God Herself......



And, no it's not a dialect thing!

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Thanks!

I did an in depth study on angels in the Bible some years ago. Every single mention of an angel, in the Bible, is of a fully created masculine nature. There is never a mention of female angels, child angels or people becoming angels when they die. Such things like Raphael-esque chubby little child-like cherubim, feminine DaVinci-esque angel paintings or the myriad female angel statues in churches and cemeteries are all folklore. Biblically, all angels are masculine and fully formed "adult" creations.

So, asking what the female version of "angel" is like inquiring about the masculine form of the word "woman." There is no such thing.

The language does not necessarily have to follow biblical logic in that matter. In Slavic languages there is no problem with using words like Polish anielica or Russian ангелица (angyelitsa), attested in dictionaries, meaning literally ‘a female angel’, used often to describe a gentle, kind woman, just as anioł, ангел (masculine in grammatical gender, can be used as biological-sex-neutral) can be used to describe any good person.

I think, as others already answered, that in Irish one would generally just use the masc. word ‘aingeal’, regardless of the sex of described being – but again, judging from the existence of words like bantiarna, banlaoch, ban-ab… I wouldn’d be too surprised to see some ban-aingeal too.

And – even though in Irish case there might not be any feminine version of angel in use – the question was absolutely valid for a language not known to the person asking, regardless of biblical status of angels – as there are languages with feminine words for ‘female angels’, like some Slavic ones.

It's actually a very common misconception that grammatical gender corresponds to sex. For people who have never studied a gendered language, the whole thing can be very confusing. It can be even more confusing when you realize that "Aingeal" can be a woman's name in Irish!

From a biblical standpoint it is true that angels are always assigned masculine attributes. It's also true that, at least in Judeo-Christian theology, humans don't become angels after death. But popular culture is an entirely different thing, and that's where most people who request this translation are coming from.

To sum up, "aingeal" is, as others have said, exactly the word you want to use.

For those who are curious about grammatical gender, I wrote this a while back:

https://thegeekygaeilgeoir.wordpress.co ... sh-gender/

Redwolf

BTW:
Aingeal (= Angela) as a name is a bit different from the word aingeal (= an angel) in that the former doesn't change in geniitive case.

glór Aingeal = Angela's voice
glór aingil = an angel's voice

I assume this is the case with any name, no?
We don't see "céard é seoladh Fhirdhorcha?" or any such thing, do we?

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